Appeals court upholds verdict against Amboy man after fatal accident | Police and fire department

The Indiana Court of Appeals has upheld the prison sentence of an Amboy man involved in a fatal head-on collision in rural Miami County in 2021.

Brandon Eller, 36, of Amboy, was driving a Dodge Caliber southbound on Indiana 19 near 550 East on the evening of June 28, 2021, when he crossed into the northbound lanes and collided head-on with a Jeep Grand Cherokee driven by Steven Armfield, 69, of Sheridan. Carolann Pulley, 78, of Converse, was a passenger in the Jeep.

Pulley died as a result of the accident, and Armfield suffered numerous injuries, including a traumatic brain injury, a broken right arm, broken ribs, a broken back, a shattered right hip and a broken left leg, and was forced to live in a nursing home, court documents show.

According to police, Eller admitted to smoking marijuana and drinking alcohol earlier in the day. According to court documents, Eller’s blood alcohol level was .064 and he tested positive for marijuana.

Initially, he was accused of driving a motor vehicle under the influence of alcohol causing negligent homicide, as well as driving a vehicle with a concentration of Schedule I or II substances in his blood.

In a settlement, Eller pleaded guilty to intoxicated manslaughter; the second charge was dropped.

Before Eller’s sentencing in December 2023, Armfield died.

At the sentencing hearing, prosecutors presented evidence suggesting that Armfield’s death was caused by the 2021 accident. Among other things, they said that Armfield was “a very independent person who was quite active” before the accident.

Armfield’s legal guardian testified at the sentencing that in the months before his death, Armfield realized “that he was not going to get better. And I think he went downhill from there.”

Judge David Grund of Miami County Superior Court 1 cited Armfield’s death as an aggravating circumstance when he sentenced Eller to six years in prison, four of which were to be served and two years suspended.

In his appeal, Eller argued that there was no evidence that Armfield died as a result of injuries sustained in the accident, so Grund was incorrect in citing Armfield’s death as an aggravating circumstance.

The appeals court disagreed and affirmed Eller’s conviction in a six-page opinion written by Indiana Court of Appeals Judge Paul Mathias.

“In addition, the evidence shows that Armfield was a very active 69-year-old at the time of the accident and was so disabled that he ‘could not walk or care for himself after the accident,'” Judge Mathias wrote. “He was placed in a nursing home and required to wear diapers. … This evidence supports the reasonable inference that Armfield died from the injuries he sustained in the accident on June 28, 2021.”